


To waltz with you again

by Middy



Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Ghosts, Hurt/Comfort, Old Age, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 20:31:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5104757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Middy/pseuds/Middy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Edith has lived a long life as a widow, just as she always said she would.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To waltz with you again

**Old.** It was what the human body was damned to progress to, no medicine in the world was enough to stop it. Edith barely cared like most of the population, she was not so preoccupied with her image. She was an author who worked to the bone up to her last book, which Alan made her drop the tools for good. She developed carpal tunnel in both hands and tremors that made it hard to even hold a pencil.  
  
Sitting in front of a mirror she had wrinkles pulling at her once ivory smooth skin, her brown orbs were still bright but aged. Her golden locks were now white as the snow outside with some silver. Yet no matter how many times she looked at herself, she still felt like she was her twenty year old self in 1901. The outside was just an aged shell, protecting her young soul tattered by past events.    
  
Since the events in 1901 at Allerdale Hall, she hadn't seen her husband..not once. She had cried, begged and fallen to her knees praying for him to appear. She hadn't needed any answers as she found a journal of his that spilled him out to the world. He was trapped, afraid, and taught to love in the perverse way he was seeing as wrong towards the end. He had even wrote how much he had fallen for Edith, full heart no lies. It was something she read every day, and now even has her eyes were failing her and her hands shook fiercely she read it again.  
  
_"I have fallen for a golden haired goddesses, eyes like specks of amber and a smile to remember. I dare not tell Lucille, for she will destroy the fire I dare say I want to engulf me. Edith is not like most girls she is open-minded and speaks her mind to the fullest. I read her book and I believe she is as graceful with a pen and paper as she is with her fluid movements with the waltz. I admit I have never touched a thing as soft as her hands, delicate and small. Edith is not like the others I was forced to wed for Lucille's schemes of money, even though I take responsibility for ended those poor girls lives..._  
  
_Edith is as I selfishly believe..is my soulmate, the light that pours over my darkened soul and purifies me. She gives me inspiration with my inventions, her eyes when she saw my latest project gave me chills. That smile assured me of what I could really do. How far my goals could be taken to. Why was I lucky enough to find her that day? Or have I just doomed her to a short life at the hands of my sister? No, I will stop all tea going to Edith. I **know** Lucille is putting poison...just by the way she looks at Edith. And when Edith mentioned a bitter taste with hers. _  
  
_A few times I dumped the tea and the hot water from the kettle, Lucille would put it in everything to be rid of my angel. I think she's onto us...I avoid it each time she asks but I want to just smile. Like my heart is at the moment of remembering our shared night at the post office. Though I know what she'd do to Edith if she found out, like the one woman before Enola who Lucille pushed down the stairs breaking her neck. I wasn't home when she attacked her, but she claims the woman was confronting her on butting in ob our marriage and it escalated from there. Honestly I think Lucille just wanted to hurry up and do away with her, I didn't love her but I do feel regretful I didn't stop it._  
  
_I do now vow I will protect Edith at the cost of my life if it comes down to it. I love her...more then the many things I could invent. Today I must lay with Lucille to keep her off Edith, I hate to have to resort back into those ways with her. Not long until I will gain the courage to live with my wife...just need more time. "_  
  
A tear splashed onto the old paper, one she didn't know she had even started to shed. Oh how she missed her beloved, his voice like silk and his bright blue eyes that made you fall into them spiraling out of reality for those few seconds he stared. Edith laid the paper inside her night table draw and laid back, it had been awhile since she was able to move properly. Alan had set up a home IV to keep fluids in her, she hated them such a nuisance to walk with.  She was getting weaker by the day, Alan denied her statements of death. He would keep her alive with tooth and nail...she knew. Yet the feeling of being so close was not how she expected, she wasn't bawling her eyes out over the fear of it all going dark. No, she wanted to greet death..to find her lost first love.  
  
She closed her eyes as they were starting to become heavy, she was tired and now it hit her like a storm. Unpredictable and not able to control when it happens. A bump near her bed jolted her from the slow drift into slumber. Looking around the darkness was covering everything and her sight was poor. Edith squinted at a taller silhouette near her window, she would have cursed at he damn coat rack giving her the scare but it moved as if shifting on feet. Quickly she grabbed her glasses and turned the light on at her lamp, the room flooded with some light and she looked up to see it had gone. Her heart pounded, was it Lucille had she finally come to end her?   
  
Looking around once more she laid back ready to remove her glasses, then she felt it. The slight deep in her mattress and the smell of fresh snow and old books. Her head turned to look and her eyes widened. There in all his glory sat Sir Thomas Sharpe, his hand on one of hers as he looked upon her.   
  
"T-Thomas..?" She sat up, regretting it as it took the air from her for a few seconds. Looking up at him Edith watched his form shift into his regular pale skin..blue eyes.   
  
"Oh my Edith..." He stroked her wrinkled cheek. "You've grown to be a very beautiful-"  
  
"Old hag." she interjected.  
  
"Edith.." He scolded. "We would have been this way if I had lived my dearest."  
  
"Well you would have aged better I'm sure, I look like a shriveled old fruit!" Her older voice croaked out as she crossed her arms.   
  
Edith heard his chuckle and it was enough to make her shed a few tears. She took in a breath and looked at his hands then to his face again. "Why have you come..? After all these years..?" She was confused, yet she wasn't complaining to see him now.   
  
"Edith..your body is frail..and Mr. McMichael is forcing you to cling to life." He sighed. "Your in so much pain I can feel it." He rubbed the ring on his finger that showed their marriage was what bond them together. "'I've come to take you with my love."  
  
Edith felt her heart leap in her chest and her gaze was to her own hands now. "It's strange...I feel like I'm still Twenty...like I should still be working."   
  
"It's because while our bodies age, our souls stay young forever." He graced her with a smile one she missed to much to bare not seeing it again.   
  
"I'm ready." She said confidently.   
  
"Edith.." He smiled. Scooting closer he laid her back and brushed her locks from her face. "Close your eyes and sleep, think of all the things happy..things that make you happy."   
  
Edith would have snorted but she was to tired to even do that so she complied. "Okay."  
  
"I will be here by your side my love..just sleep."  
  
That was all she heard when things went dark, then her eyes opened suddenly. "Thomas it didn't work!" She stopped moving to see her fallen hair was now golden in color, and her hands untouched by old age. She stood up and ran to the mirror to see herself, she was young again...but? She turned to see her body laying on the bed, did she truly look that old? That surely was not her, but she knew it was and the bigger thing hit her. She was dead.  
  
Arms wrapped around her, her eyes fluttered shut at the touch.   
  
"Oh finally we are together my beloved." He turned her around and was nearly knocked back by her crashing lips.  
  
Edith kissed her husband with all the love she held in her heart, burying her face in his chest she held him tight.

* * *

Alan opened the door that morning to check in on Edith, his love for her still there even though she still did not share them. He had married anyways, had five kids and ten grandchildren. His wife had passed four years back and Edith had seen her at her grave before she disappeared, she never told Alan..it would only upset the poor man more.    
  
"Edith?" He aid bringing in her new IV bag he walked over changing it without looking at her. Looking down Alan noticed she wasn't moving the slightest bit and he felt her pulse in her wrist and neck. Putting his head on her chest to hear what wouldn't even be beating he shook. "Oh Edith.."    
  
Alan looked up at her and stroked her cold face. He sobbed at her bedside, grieved his friend.  
  
"Oh Alan.." Edith spoke touching his now older shrunken less broad shoulder.   
  
Thomas looked down.  
  
"You must have died peacefully my dearest friend." Alan spoke. "I'm sure your with him now..."   
  
Edith smiled.  
  
"You better take care of her Thomas." He said to the all but empty room to his own knowledge.  
  
Thomas pulled her close. "You have my word."   
  
Alan wiped his eyes, he felt almost mad talking to himself but he couldn't shake the feeling they were here. He took out his camera, one he carried everyday to capture life's moments. He trembled as he turned and walked to the other side of her bed to snap a picture of her. He would have it be developed and add it to the photo's for her memorial service.   
  
Later when he would however, he would not just see the body of Edith. In the room next to the bed stood young Edith Sharpe and her husband, smiles gracing their features It would be proof of ghosts Alan would keep to himself, a photo kept on his person until his last few breaths taken on his death bed surrounded by his kids.    
  
As for Edith and Thomas.  
  
"May I have this dance Mrs. Sharpe?" Thomas asked holding out a hand to her.  
  
"Yes." Edith said taking his open hand in hers as they began to move gracefully around and around, instead of a party it was only them. Her dress flowing each step they took, his smile mirroring her own. Edith couldn't complain she finally had what she wished for and as long as she was with Thomas everything was perfectly fine.  
  
"Shall we travel the world?" He said into her ear kissing her temple.  
  
"Well we have eternity to do so." She kissed him as they turned again and she felt the smile forming on his lips.   
  
They spun around near gave to the graveyard that had the graves they had been buried side by side in and disappeared leaving a few chuckles in the air that faded away soon after.


End file.
